Icons, avatars and other profile pictures

What does yours mean to you? Is it a photo of you, if so, what are you doing and why? There are some pretty weird ones out there and I want to get to the bottom of them!

My avatar is the Greek letter Phi, because it is used in maths, science and art. I am interested in maths the sciences and the arts, and that is one of the reasons I chose it. Another reason is that Phi is the golden ratio, as was stated in an image I made (and a previous avatar that is now missing):

Another important thing I have included in my avatar is the rainbow background. I love rainbows and to me they are the penultimate beauty (The ultimate being the aurorae). Other versions of my avatar are:

The name is my initials, nothign kewl there, but the picture is something I found while discussing weather. I was on the PAX East forums, and they were saying it might be cold in boston, so I tried to describe how cold it is in Canada by using that picture in comparison to a sunny field.

<-- Me, holding a book (the book of useless information, which I've memorized) with a thermal camera effect. I like books. I'm also purposefully covering my mouth and looking up/away from the camera because straight on and propless I look like I want to kill people and/or high. In pictures only, promise. That's the problem.

My avatar is my youngest son channeling The Rage. It was also photoshopped by my very good friend who, unfortunately, didn't know how to spell "horde". I am using it because my little guy is ridiculously cute and I think the picture is hilarious.